METZ, Hildegarde

  Research Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Metz-538
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Notice of resolution of ambiguous parentage

This profile has been edited with regard to parents in accordance with principles established by the European Aristocracy user-group. Medieval genealogy is not an exact science, and digital collaborative genealogy must therefore occasionally make choices where old-fashioned print-scholarship did not have to. The parents (or lack of parents) of the person described in this profile were decided upon in consultation with primary sources especially as collected in the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy's Medieval Lands project.

Biography

The correct MEDLANDS reference is http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ANJOU,%20MAINE.htm#FoulquesIIIdied1040B And as of 4 October 2015 this project gave no proposed parents and had the following to say about her:

"FOULQUES d'Anjou," [...]
"m secondly (after 1000) HILDEGARD, daughter of --- (-Jerusalem 1 Apr 1046, bur Jerusalem, Church of the Holy Sepulchre). "Fulco Andegavorum comes atque Hildegardis conjunx mea" founded the monastery of La Charité Sainte-Marie d´Anjou by undated charter signed by "…Goffridi Fulconis filii…"[156]. "Fulco Andecavorum comes et uxor mea Hildegardis filius quoque noster Goffridus" donated the bridge of Mayenne to the monastery of La Charité Sainte-Marie d´Anjou by undated charter[157]. She became a nun at the Abbey of Sainte-Marie de Ronceray which she had founded in 1028. "Fulco comes Andegavensis, Iherosolimitanum iter aggrediens cum Audeardi comitissa et filii suo Goffredo Martello" donated property "in Genio...molendinum atque furnum" by undated charter[158]. "Hildegardis comitissa" relinquished rights in favour of the oratory of Toussaint by charter dated [21 Jun 1040/1 Apr 1046][159]. "Joffredus Andecavorum comes…michi matronis domna Hildgalde comitissa genitrice mea simulque conjuge mea Agnosze" donated "curte Petre" to the monastery of La Charité Sainte-Marie d´Anjou by charter 1 Oct (no year)[160]. She died while on pilgrimage to Jerusalem[161]. An undated charter records the death of "comitissa Hildegardis quando viam Jerosolimitane peregrinationis" and her donation of serfs to the monastery of La Charité Sainte-Marie d´Anjou[162]. The necrology of Angers Cathedral records the death "Kal Apr" of "Ildegardis nobilis comitissa"[163]. The Chronicæ Sancti Albini records the death "1046 Kal Apr" of "Hildegardis comitissa"[164]. A charter dated to [1060/67] recites a prior donation to Saint-Aubin d'Angers by "Hildegardis comitissa", who retained a life interest in the property which, after the death of the donor, was sold in turn to "Agneti comitissa" (recording her divorce from "comitum Gaufridum"), "comitem Gaufridum…Gaufridi nepotem" and finally "fratre eius Fulconi" who restituted it to the abbey[165]. The necrology of Vendôme La Trinité records the death "Kal Apr" of "Hildegardis comitissa Andegavorum mater fundatoris nostri"[166]. The Chronicon Vindocinense records the death "Kal Apr" in 1046 of "Hildegardis religiosa comitissa Andegavensis"[167]. "


The respected medieval genealogists Stewart Baldwin and Todd Farmerie include articles on Hildegarde's family on their Henry II website,

"Hildegarde de Lorraine, d. Jerusalem, 1 April 1046 [Martyrology of the abbey of Ronceray, quoted from Marchegay & Mabille (1869), 395, n. 3; Halphen (1906), 11; Annales de Saint-Aubin, Halphen (1903), 4 (date only), among other annals]."[1]

They state clearly that:

"The cartulary of Ronceray provides the only indication of Hildegarde's origin: "... religiosa atque piisima comitissarum, domna Hildegardis, quam scilicet ut credimus et in rebus manifestum est, omnium conditor Deus a Lothariensium partibus, de regali progenie ortam, in hos occidentales terrarum fines ad restaurationem destitutarum olim ecclesiarum perduxit ..." [Halphen (1906), 11, quoting the cartulary of Ronceray]. One plausible conjecture is that she was somehow related to the counts of Nordgau, a Lotharingian family of royal descent in which the name Hildegarde is known to have occurred [see the short discussion in Settipani (1997), 253-4]."[1]

In other words, all that can be said is that she was "Lotharingian" which is a term that covered a large part of Frankish Europe. Her parents are not known.


Sources

Settipani (1997) = Christian Settipani, "Les comtes d'Anjou et leur alliances aux Xe et XIe siècles", in K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, ed., Family Trees and the Roots of Politics (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1997): 211-267.

Hildegarde married Foulques D'ANJOU in 1000 in Unknown. (Foulques D'ANJOU was born about 970 in Anjou, Isere, Rhone-Alpes, France and died on 21 Jun 1040 in Metz, Moselle, Lorraine, France.)